


It takes time

by castielatlas



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, everyone loves newt, nalby - Freeform, one sided minewt, well as happy as it can get when everyone you love is dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 16:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielatlas/pseuds/castielatlas
Summary: Four times Minho loses Newt. One time he finds Thomas.





	1. Denial

The first time Minho lost a piece of Newt, both him and Alby were still Runners, the latter being the Keeper at the time —Minho himself having just joined the group.

The evening is bathed in anxiety as he waits for his two comrades to get back from the Maze, dangerously late. With each hour that passes without any of them in sight, panic rises in his chest.

Just as the Doors are about to close and Minho is buzzing with restlessness, Alby appears, dragging a half-conscious and injured Newt and barely reaching the Glade on time.

Everyone immediately surrounds them, yelling and questioning and Clint and Jeff have to fight their way to Newt. His leg is in bad shape. His ankle is bent at an angle that's just painful to look at, and his bone is showing from the ugly wound. As for Newt himself, he looks completely out of it. His eyes are faraway and there are tear steaks on his cheeks, pulling at Minho’s heartstrings in ways he doesn’t want to think too hard about. 

“No Griever sting,” Jeff says after quickly examining Newt, and everyone visibly exhales, tension seeming to ease off upon hearing the Med Jacks’ words. “At least there's that.”

“Let's patch you up,” Clint smiles at Newt. 

They carry the blond to Homestead to nurse his injuries and as everyone goes back to their job, muttering between themselves, Minho’s attention lands on Alby for the first time since they came back. Nick is talking with him, a hand on his shoulder. 

Alby looks like clunk. He is leaning against the Door, as if he might collapse if he doesn’t, and he looks like he saw a Griever up close –which might have been the case.

“What the shuck happened in there?” Minho enquires when Nick is called away.

Alby lets himself slide down the floor, exhaustion apparent in his features, holding his head in his hands. The silence stretches between them, and Minho, ever so impatient, is about to ask him again when Alby finally opens his mouth. His voice is low, almost inaudible.

“He climbed the wall.”

Minho’s eyes grow wide upon hearing the words.

“You serious? On his own?” he gestures in disbelief. “That dumb shank, I swear on my ass. Was he trying to escape a griever? Did he even manage to catch a glimpse of something before he fell–“

Alby’s bitter snort cuts him short. Minho gives him a confused look, not understanding the boy’s attitude. “What?”

His friend breathes out heavily and rests his head in his hands.

“He wasn’t climbing to find an exit,” Alby’s voice wavers, as if he wants to spit it out too fast and not say it at all as the same time. His hands tighten in his short hair. “Don’t you get it, Minho?”

Minho feels utterly swayed by the sight of fearless, ever-collected Alby seemingly breaking in front of him. Minho doesn't know Alby by heart, but he knows the sight of a Griever or risking getting stuck isn't the reason Alby is in this state. No, either something bigger than them happened, or...

On instinct, Minho looks back at Homestad where the blonde Runner was taken and frowns, worried. _Newt. _

“What is it really, Alby?” Minho’s voice comes out weaker than he expects as he looks back down at his friend. “What happened?”

Alby looks up at him with the same haunted look he’s had since he brought Newt back. The Runner is starting to realize that something is very wrong here.

“He didn’t fall,” Alby finally says, and Minho hears his voice distinctly break as the words leave his lips. “He_ jumped_.”

The next morning, when Minho goes off into the Maze, Newt isn’t here, but the dried streak of his blood is.

He pukes at the first corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here's a little something that's been rotting in my drafts since forever and i decided to post it as i edit it, bc perhaps some peeps will enjoy it! 
> 
> actual notes:  
\- nalby is the main ship here. it's mostly Newt and nalby through Minho's eyes  
\- minewt is one sided and will remain this way, sorry :(  
\- thominho doesn't happen before the last chapter  
\- i dig the idea of Alby being a Runner although that's not the creative decision i made in my previous nalby fics, but well, that's the magic of different works


	2. Bargaining

The second time, it’s late when Minho catches the sight of Newt and Alby sitting by the remnants of the bonfire they threw for the new Greenie, the rest of the Gladers long gone. They’re quietly talking, relaxed and carefree the way teenagers should always be, but that is rarely allowed when it comes to them.

When Nick died three months ago, Alby was quickly elected First-in-Command, being the most trustworthy for the position as well as one of late Nick’s most valued friend. Newt, rendered unable to run since his injury, became his second, and Minho took over Alby as Keeper of the Runners.

Minho moves to join them, but then, he sees Newt lean forward in Alby’s personal space, their faces a breath apart, and Minho freezes. Newt’s eyes flutter close as Alby gently cups his face before he closes the distance between them, the movement fluid and natural, as if they have done this a million times already.

Minho can only stare in stunned silence as he realizes what a blind fool he has been.

How could he not notice before? It was _right there_, in the secret smiles and brushes of fingers, in the way Newt’s attention slips away every time Alby enters a room, how they stand next to each other without any notion of personal space. It was right there in the way they look at each other. The fond expression Newt has when he gazes at Alby, how he drinks everything the former Keeper says. Newt never looks at anyone else like that.

They share a bed, Minho shakes himself, baffled he hasn’t caught on before. Sure, in itself, the fact is no big deal because it’s such a common thing in the Glade. But whereas most of them do it when the night gets a too cold or to try to chase the loneliness away with another soul sleeping close, craving intimacy and human contact –it’s different for Newt and Alby. There is undeniable exclusivity in their sleeping arrangements, how they actively seek the other to sleep.

Minho isn’t aware of any Gladers so deeply committed to each other that they would risk getting stuck in the Maze to save them, and completely oblivious, had always assumed the best friends were just unhealthily co-dependant –he has even snapped at Newt a few times, inexplicably annoyed by their ever growing proximity. It has always been Alby that Newt went to first, for anything, and each time, Minho’s chest is heavy with complicated emotions. 

He vividly remembers catching Newt having a panic attack a few weeks ago and being downright rejected as he had approached his friend, only to find him later, face buried in Alby’s neck, clinging to him like a lifeline as the shorter boy gently rubbed his back. It had hurt, badly.

Newt is by no means cold to him, on the contrary. He is one of the warmest, most affectionate people Minho has ever met, and their friendship is undoubtedly treasured by the former Runner, but it’s inexplicably frustrating because he treats Alby _different_. He needs Alby differently.

Minho realizes Alby and Newt are in love and as he does, as he watches them, basked in the other’s presence, tuning out the outside world completely, Minho’s heart hurts, because he also comes to the realization that _he_, is in love with Newt. That’s the reason why he has been so jealous of Newt not extending the same level of friendship he granted Alby –because it was more than friendship. It was love, and he wanted it.

Their lips touch, and Minho’s heart breaks.


	3. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i was having so much trouble with the tense in this chap, i feel like it's a mess. sorry to anyone reading this

The third time, they exit The Crank Palace in a rush and every step Minho takes opens up the pit in his stomach a little more.

Newt isn’t with them.

Minho wants to punch something. He wants to curse and scream at the world until his throat hurts and he can’t breathe. He wants to go back in time to prevent it all from happening because he should have seen it coming.

From that night Alby had brought him back from the Maze, to his heart-wrenching scream over the Grievers’ howling as they tore Alby apart. To the vacant look in his eyes turning into mad, white anger as they learned the truth about WICKED – about themselves.

It wasn’t sudden; he had slowly evolved to this state over the past weeks. It was in the outbursts and lack of patience and impulsivity. But up until now, Minho had gladly justified it by the stress and tiredness of their current situation. Sure, Newt was infected, but he would be fine. Ever since they had learned that Newt wasn’t immune, Minho had clung to the desperate hope that they would find a cure; that they would figure this klunk out, together. Newt would be safe. He _had to_ be.

There were many instances where Minho had been hurt by Newt. Mostly, it had been independent of the blonde boy’s will - heartbreak simply a side-effect of harboring feelings for your best friend, whom only has eyes for someone else. It was a daily ache he had learned to live with.

Reading Newt’s note had hurt something different, but it was nothing like seeing him in the Crank Palace. Not only had he looked utterly foreign in appearance –although it had only been three days since they last saw him– his entire demeanor had been off.

Still, realization did not come when Newt pulled a launcher on him. It did not come as he heard him spit words with an insanely hateful look in his eyes, no matter how much it shattered his heart. No, the painful reality hit him when Thomas agreed to leave. Thomas, the stubborn hothead who never let go of anything, who never gave up –was giving in. Minho’s resolve was definitely breaking – and it completely shattered when Newt begged them to leave. He was talking with such desperation, his eyes suddenly clear and his expression so full of anguish, Minho couldn’t do anything but give in.

They couldn’t save Newt, because Newt didn’t want to be saved.

Minho rests his face against the cold glass of the car and watches with a blank look the building getting smaller and smaller in the distance as they leave. There is numbness in his chest as he thinks of all the times he has felt like Newt slipped through his fingers.

This time, it feels final.


End file.
